


blind

by WanderingCreep



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, ambrollins if you squint really really hard towards the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 01:20:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15183605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingCreep/pseuds/WanderingCreep
Summary: you can't expect forgiveness so easily.set after raw 7/17/2017





	blind

**Author's Note:**

> after marinating in a 'post-seth rollins apology' world, i decided that i didn't like the way that storyline played out; it was too short, didn't really do the characters justice, and no one really learned anything from it. so i re-wrote it for closure and for fun.

blind

 

Seth is fully expecting to be taken up on his offer.

Like, it makes enough sense: Dean has always been the most violent of the two of them, of the trio of them really, back when they were still a faction. He fully expects Dean to take the chair and beat the living shit out of him with it. Why wouldn’t he?

He’s been saying for years now that he wanted to make Seth hurt, saying and doing these things that would make as much sense for him now to hit him with the chair as it did then. So yes, Seth expects Dean to take him up on his offer.

He just wasn’t expecting Dean to do it like he did.

In hindsight, this makes sense too. Dean has never been about being the better man and all that sentimental shit; when he wants you to hurt, you will, regardless of if it’s the right thing or not. He’s always been a little bit crazy for revenge, but since Seth broke up the band, it was like something snapped, and now all that Dean eats, sleeps and breathes is revenge.

Seth had been standing with his back turned to him. Arms out, shoulders squared. He was ready for it, ready to stop running from his problems.

In his head, this made the most sense. Dean and Roman had had their backs turned when he’d taken the chair to them, why shouldn’t he?

That was a mistake.

He hears Dean’s boots stomp closer, and Seth braces himself for impact, but it never comes. he’s so tense that when a hand falls on his shoulder, he nearly jumps out of his skin, and nearly trips over his own feet when he’s spun around to face Dean.

There’s a split second when all he can make out is  the cocktail of emotions swarming across Dean’s face: anger, rage, no hesitation, hate, hate, hate, resolve.

Then the chair slams into his gut, and everything sort of clicks into place. Seth nearly drops to his knees, in pain, out of breath – it felt like Dean had just stabbed him through the stomach with the chair – and then he hears the whistle of the chair as Dean rears it back through the air. It crashes down on his spine, and this time Seth does fall to his knees, one arm wrapped defensively around his torso. Dean lifts a foot and drives it into Seth’s side, knocking him over on his back, and wastes no time and bringing the chair down again.

This makes sense too.

Seth had seen the look in Dean’s eyes before he’d taken the first blow. Dean wasn’t going to be content with Seth just offering himself up like that; he wanted him to feel the same way he had when Seth had taken the chair to him. Taken off-guard, shocked, surprised; he couldn’t do that if he was expecting Dean to hit him while his back was turned. It was probably a kind of disrespect, a downplay of what had really happened.

No, if Seth was going to let the tables be turned, he was going to take his punishment in full.

The chair comes down again and again. Something snaps inside Seth.

Somewhere through the haze of what’s happening, Seth can hear the crowd chanting, counting the times the chair makes impact with a different part of his body. It’s a fast count, in time with the rhythm of the chair, _one two three four_ , like Dean has to do it quick or else the opportunity will evaporate into thin air or something. Like he’s got to get it all out of his system before he loses the nerve.

Something twinges inside of Seth’s chest, not quite a physical pain from the chair shots, but by now, he’s not so sure. Of course Dean wanted him to see this, to see him. He wanted him to see what he had created. To look Dean in the eye so that he could see every bit of pain and fear that flickered in Seth’s eyes as he got what was three years overdue. It was fair after all. Seth _had_ offered. He had been ready to take it. It wasn’t like he didn’t know Dean was going to go to fucking town on him, especially not after all the shit Seth had pulled.

But Seth can’t help it though; he rolls on his side to shield his already bruised and broken torso from the chair, but Dean doesn’t seem to mind. He just goes after what’s presented to him and fucks that part of Seth up too.

Something else snaps; that makes twice now.

Seth screws his eyes shut, can’t keep looking at Dean and the chair and the lights and the crowd and the blood that’s somehow miraculously staining the mat – when had that gotten there? Where did it come from? – and he can’t breathe, and he just wants wants wants –

Wants.

That was what had gotten him in this situation in the first place.

He’d wanted for too much three years ago and had thrown his lot in with Hunter. If he hadn’t wanted so much, Dean wouldn’t be hurting so badly, and Seth wouldn’t be lying here on the mat in a daze of pain and chair shots to the head.

 _Dean_.

That’s right; he’d wanted to let Dean want for a little while. That’s why he was here. And right now, it seemed like Dean really wanted to take him apart completely. And Seth shouldn’t -isn’t can’t won’t – complain. He’d let it happen. This was the only way he knew how to get through to Dean. He’d tried everything else.

It seemed like even after all this time, though, he was still wanting.

 

 

The chair shots have slowed down.

The chanting has slowed accordingly. Dean had only really tuned back in and realized what was happening a few shots ago. The adrenaline is starting to leave him, makes him feel sick to his stomach, makes him shake.

The entire time, there’d been a buzzing in his ears, loud and shrill, as he focused on the chair in his hands and the man in front of him. The anger and hurt he’d had pent up under his skin for so long was finally being expelled, and for a moment, it had felt great. He was finally getting due justice for what this backstabbing asshole had done to him.

Then he remembered that Seth had wanted this to happen.

He’d wanted Dean to hit him, wanted him to take out his anger like this. Said it was supposed to make Dean feel better, but in reality, it was so that Seth could feel better about leaving Dean for dead like he had.

 _Ha_.

Still playing mind games, he sees.

That just pisses him off even more and the shots continue with renewed vigor. Seth had stayed facing Dean the whole time – a valiant effort, Dean had to admit – but towards the eighth or ninth shot, he’d caved and folded in on himself.

“Having second thoughts?” Dean had heard himself screaming. Obviously he hadn’t gotten an answer. Of course, he’d only said it to be spiteful. He had no intention of slowing down or stopping anytime soon. He didn’t.

He didn’t.

He falters.

He brings the chair down once and hangs back. He can hear his own ragged breathing, can feel his heart beating a mile a minute in his chest. He lifts the chair again.

It comes down, crashing against Seth’s shoulder, but there’s less power behind it. Less vitriol.

Less and less.

It’s slowly draining out of him, mimicked in the way the chair shots are coming slower and slower now.

Seth has since stopped squirming. Dean can’t see his face for the dark vines of hair splayed over it.

Dean wants to raise the chair again, wants to be angry still – _it’s been three goddamn years_ – but it’s just not there anymore. He feels empty.

Hollow.

The arm with the chair falls limp by his side. For a while, all he can do is stand there and try to catch his breath. The world goes on around him; the crowd is still making noise, but Dean can’t really hear it over the sound of the blood rushing in his ears.

Speaking of blood, he only now notices the stuff on the mat near Seth’s head. He furrows his brow.

When had that gotten there? Where did it come from?

Using the chair like a crutch, Dean slides down onto his knees and just freezes. He wants to scream, use up the last reserve of anger he’s still got boiling in his chest like a chunk of molten iron. He wants to, but he won’t.

He’s too tired.

Too tired of being angry. Too tired of being in pain. Too tired of everything.

He leans his head against the cool metal of the chair in his hand. The noise of the world fades in and out. His arms and legs are shaking. His breathing is deep and ragged. Briefly, he wonders where Roman is, if he was watching the whole spectacle from somewhere in the arena or outside of it. He wonders what he would think of seeing Dean come so undone. Would he have done the same thing if he had been in Dean’s shoes?

No, probably not. He had always been the more level-headed of the three of them. Dean grins at that thought. He doesn’t know why.

Then he remembers Seth. He’s been staring at him this whole time, but it only occurs to him now that he wasn’t actually seeing him.

He reaches out, hands still shaking, fingers hesitating just over Seth’s head. Dean blinks and shakes his head. Tries again.

He cards his fingers through Seth’s tangled hair, and then brushes the most of it away from his face and behind his ear. Its surprisingly gentle, gentle enough that it even startles Dean, especially given what has just conspired between the two of them.

Seth stirs, scrunching his eyes even tighter until little crow’s feet appear along the edges, like even Dean’s gentlest touch is causing him pain. He opens them slowly, blinking softly, and only succeeds in getting them halfway open, but by then Dean has already backed off and the EMTs are running down the ramp.

 

 

Dean tells himself he doesn’t want to do this.

He tells himself that he really shouldn’t be here, that Seth wouldn’t want to see him after he beat him into submission with a steel chair, and that Dean shouldn’t want to be here after doing such a thing. He took the chair to him because he didn’t like him, didn’t he?

Yet here he is, standing in front of the trainer’s room door, looking like an idiot.

He clenches and unclenches his fists, glaring at the door like _it’s_ the one who slighted him and not the man behind it, and counting to ten and re-counting when his feet won’t move after the first ten-count.

He really shouldn’t be here.

But he is here, and now he has to deal with it.

Or he could just leave. The door hasn’t opened yet.

Right as he’s making up his mind to leave, his body betrays him and decides that now is the perfect time to open the fucking door. Because of course. Why not. His mind is screaming, asking him _what the fuck he thinks he’s doing,_ and his feet are suddenly steering him through the doorway.

The trainers have paused in what they were doing and look up at him as he enters. The closest one immediately starts with, “Sorry, sir, you can’t be in here,” and Dean wants to agree with him, but his feet are still moving.

“Really, man, if you’ve come in here to start a fight, we’ll have to call security. Please.”

Dean is still moving.

Seth is there, lying back on one of the tables watching him. His shirt is gone, replaced with thick bandages wrapped tightly around his torso. His entire upper body looks like a mottled patchwork of purple and black bruises.

He looks like shit.

Dean is standing by the table now, not doing anything, just staring at him, hands tight by his sides. Seth holds his gaze for an impressive amount of time before he glances at the trainers and says, “It’s cool guys.”

Dean finally finds his words then and snaps at them, “Get out.”

Seth looks at him exasperated. _So much for trying to diffuse the situation._

The trainers look from Dean to Seth, who nods. “It’s fine.”

So they go. When the trainers are gone, Seth turns back to Dean. “So, I told them it was fine,” he says slowly. He blinks at Dean. “ _Is_ it fine?”

“Why are you like this?”

Seth blinks again. “I – what?”

“Still playing mind games after all this time,” hums Dean.

“What mind games?”

“You wanted me to hit you, didn’t you?”

Seth shrugs. “I gave you the opportunity, so yeah, it was on the table. But I wasn’t trying to play mind games.” He shrugs again and wraps an arm around his bandaged chest, wincing a little. “Violence is the language you seem to understand most. Nothing else was working. You seemed pretty into it anyway.”

Dean furrows his brow. “Do you really think so little of me?”

“Nothing else worked. I ran out of ideas. And you’ve always been saying you wanted to make me miserable, so this seemed like the best way to get on the same page.”

Dean can feel himself getting angry. What was left of the vitriol hiding under his skin is starting to well up again, starting to boil in his chest. “No, you wanted a quick and easy way out of the hole you’d dug yourself into. You said you’d tried everything – you didn’t even give me time to adapt to this ‘new person’ you’ve been trying to be become. What, you think you can come back from injury this ‘changed person’ and suddenly that makes everything better? Suddenly I should trust you again?”

Dean realizes he’s near shouting, and if he’s loud enough the trainers will come back, but he doesn’t care.

“It’s been three fucking years, Seth! Three years where we’ve been whaling on each other. Three years where we’ve been insulting each other and hating each other. It doesn’t matter if you’re suddenly a better person; you can’t undo three years of bullshit in a month! Do you even realize how hard it’s been? Do you know how bad it hurt? You didn’t even give me time to heal, you bastard! God, it’s like you don’t even care!”

Dean kicks one of the chairs near the table and sends it bouncing off the wall.

Now that he’s quieted down, the silence in the room is deafening. Seth doesn’t say anything, hasn’t tried to get in a word in edgewise the entire time. He lies on the table, watching Dean pace around the room, and stays entirely silent.

Once it seems like the tension in Dean’s shoulders have drained a little bit, he says tentatively, “I made it worse, didn’t I?”

Dean looks up.

Seth nods. “You weren’t ready for it. I shouldn’t have given you the chair,” he says softly. He’s not watching Dean anymore, looking at the wall instead. “I can see how you thought I was trying to manipulate you. And I get that I rushed it, I do. Instead of trying to make amends, I made it way worse, huh? Now we’re back to square one. You definitely don’t trust me now.”

He shakes his head then and his eyes slide back towards Dean. “I’m sorry. Again. You have every right to be angry at me.”

For a moment, Dean completely blanks out. It takes him a few moments to process what Seth has just said, and when he does, he stares at him and says, “You’re a fucking idiot.”

Seth smirks, huffs out a laugh. “That’s fair.”

Dean shakes his head and runs a hand over his face, glaring up at the ceiling. Then he breathes out and shuffles closer to Seth’s table, leaning back on it and resuming his staredown with the ceiling. God, he’s such a fucking idiot. But Dean’s tired. All of the anger is gone now. He’s used it all up. Now its time to rest.

“I’ll back off if you want me to,” says Seth.

“Don’t go too far,” murmurs Dean, and he blinks. He wasn’t supposed to say that out loud. _Shit_.

But he’s right in saying so, though. It has been three years, and he’s not gone a day during those three years without Seth being there. To have him disappear all of a sudden would be weird, and if he’s being honest, he wouldn’t really know how to deal with it. Even if all they were doing was hurting each other, Seth was still a constant. Without him, the world would feel out of tune, as much as Dean doesn’t want to admit it.

“I thought it would be great.”

Seth remains quiet, watching him. Dean takes that as his cue to keep going.

“I thought it would be great to have that chair in my hands. To finally get back at you for what you did. But…” Dean sighs deep and tired. He shrugs. “Eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, and all of that bullshit. It wasn’t all that I thought it was.” He looks at Seth. “I was angry for, like, a minute. I was fucking livid. And then I was just…tired. I don’t…I don’t wanna do this anymore.”

Seth nods, gazing down at his hands in his lap. “Me either.” They share a few silent moments, trying to process, and then Seth says, “If you don’t want to try to be…you know… _try_ _again_ , I guess is what I mean, then that’s fine.”

Dean shakes his head, watching the tiles in the floor for a while. “No. I mean. I don’t know. We’ll see.”

Seth nods again and falls silent.

Dean looks up and glances at him before he sheepishly turning his gaze back to the floor. “How’s the damage?” he asks quietly.

Seth shrugs. “Couple of cracked ribs. Some bruises. Minor concussion. Nothing new.”

“Yeah,” hums Dean, “Figures. Was trying to put the fear of god in you and all that jazz.”

Seth shakes his head. “You know I’m atheist.”

“So you saying it didn’t work?”

“No, it worked. I was definitely terrified for my fucking life.”

Dean nibbles on his lower lip. “Look…I know you gave me the chair and, yeah, I was mad, but I didn’t – I wasn’t – “

_Wasn’t what? Trying to hurt him that bad? Fucking really?_

But Seth waves him off. “I tried to put your head through the cinderblocks, remember? Morbid as it is, I think this is kind of fair.”

That surprises a laugh out of Dean. “You sure you aren’t some kind of masochist or something?”

Seth quirks an eyebrow. “You into that sort of thing?”

“Shut up. What about – I saw blood on the mat?”

“Split lip. You got me right in the mouth.”

Dean breathes a sigh of relief. Good to know it wasn’t Seth coughing up blood or something.

The door cracks open a slight bit and the face of one of the trainers peeks in. “We heard shouting and a crash…”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Geez, if I had been trying to kill you I could’ve done it six different times before they decided to check it out.”

Seth snorts and addresses the trainers. “It’s fine, guys.”

Oh well. Time’s up.

The trainers start coming back in, and Dean looks at Seth, not quite sure what to say. Seth looks back, either waiting or at a loss for words as well. The trainers continue to swarm around them.

“You’ll probably have to do the same thing with Roman,” Dean decides on. Seth grins and shakes his head. “Probably.”

Dean nods once. Then he nods again, firmly this time. “Don’t…don’t be a stranger. Um…but patience is a virtue and all that.”

“ _Atheist_ ,” Seth helpfully reminds him. “But sure.”

Dean lightly punches Seth’s thigh. Smartass.

Then he’s gone, leaving the trainers to fuss over Seth.

He has some thinking to do, but first, he needs a fucking drink and a nap.

**Author's Note:**

> should i do one for roman?  
> and find me here at neonflavored.tumblr.com


End file.
